Category: Suggestions

You might be interested in…

The Wire – the Dickensian aspects

Seth Anderson0 comment

 


The Wire complete – all five seasons ( I purchased on a whim, and have been quite pleased)

 

I’ve been conducting my annual Wire review1, and am in the fifth season.

Is The Wire Dickensian? David Simon dislikes the comparison. In this recent Vice magazine interview he admits a similarity in the “scope of society through the classes” covered by The Wire and Charles Dickens, but says he feels his treatment of the theme has more in common with Tolstoy and Balzac.

The thing that made me laugh about it with Dickens was that Dickens is famous for being passionate about showing you the fault lines of industrial England and where money and power route themselves away from the poor. He would make the case for a much better social compact than existed in Victorian England, but then his verdict would always be: “But thank God a nice old uncle or this heroic lawyer is going to make things better.” In the end, the guy would punk out.

As such, throughout season five the term “Dickensian” is used in a mocking manner to pour scorn on the journalistic values of senior Baltimore Sun editor James Whiting. As Simon says in the same Vice interview: “There was a little bit of tongue-in-cheek satire on the show directed at people who were using Dickens to praise us.”

(Just to be clear: he’s using the word to mock not his critics – but his supporters! Sometimes Simon seems to embody an inversion of a well-known NME cliche: “I just do what I do, and if nobody else likes it, it’s a bonus.”)

Certainly there are points where The Wire parts ways with Dickens. Despite the links between the various strands of society shown on the programme – drug crews, docks, newspapers, police etc – it largely avoids the sort of outrageous coincidences that Dickens routinely relies on, and sentimentality – another Dickens staple – is in the main absent from The Wire, although it does creep in a bit towards the end, the death of Bodie (“You’re a soldier”) being the most glaring example.

(click to continue reading The Wire re-up: season five, episode eight – the Dickensian aspects | Media | guardian.co.uk.)

 

Footnotes:
  1. there really hasn’t been any better television show [↩]

African music the actual African diaspora likes

Seth Anderson0 comment

Interesting observation really. When I travel, I try to find neighborhoods and restaurants the locals like, should do the same with music. Worth a listen at least.

 


"Tres Tres Fort (Dig)" (Staff Benda Bilili)

The Troxy in east London, and 2,500 pairs of hands are in the air. It’s been four years since the R&B duo P-Square played Britain. They’re household names back home in Lagos, were named artist of the year at this year’s Kora African music awards in Burkina Faso, and the brothers’ hook-driven blend of western and African rhythms has brought London’s Nigerian community out in force. “They’re just so wicked, man,” says a teary-eyed twentysomething over screams. “Where’ve you been?” she adds, incredulous, when I tell her I’ve only just discovered them.

Lately, I’ve been looking for African artists other than those beloved of the world music scene, which has had the west African colossi Salif Keita, Baaba Maal and Youssou N’Dour on heavy rotation for years. When they – and the likes of the Gibson-toting Malian chanteuse Rokia Traoré, the funky Congolese veterans Staff Benda Bilili and the red clay-smeared Ivorian diva Dobet Gnahore – come to Britain, they play to crowds that are largely white and middle-class, with little sign of the African diaspora. So there must be a whole other bunch of African artists whom Britain’s African communities are listening to.

(click to continue reading African music the actual African diaspora likes | Music | The Guardian.)


"Danger" (P-square)


"Bowmboi" (Rokia Traore)

Hitch 22

Seth Anderson0 comment

“Hitch-22: A Memoir” (Christopher Hitchens)

 

Despite reservations, I’ll probably give in to temptation, and read Christopher Hitchens’ memoir. Maybe on the plane?

Described as “a memoir,” [Hitch-22: A Memoir] is a full-frontal self-portrait, not an apologia; as the author would doubtless want us to note, “Never Apologize, Never Explain” was the title of Edmund Wilson’s 1944 New Yorker tribute to Evelyn Waugh. By turns beguiling, annoying, fascinating and infuriating, Hitch-22 catches the tone, if not the totality, of the man. We learn that the object of his earliest amorous attentions was a classmate named Guy, “a sort of strawberry blond, very slightly bow-legged, with a wicked smile that seemed to promise both innocence and experience.” Later on, after his tastes turned more conventional, Hitchens allowed himself a “mildly enjoyable relapse” with “two young men who later became members of Margaret Thatcher’s government.” Of his two wives, however, he says almost nothing. Readers expecting a full account of our hero’s life and loves—or even of how he went about earning his trench coat—will be disappointed. So too will anyone expecting the kind of tough-minded dissection Hitchens practiced with such panache on the self-serving delusions of Henry Kissinger, Isaiah Berlin, Norman Podhoretz and Conor Cruise O’Brien.

Yet the book is a reminder that even on his worst days, Hitchens still writes well enough to be entertaining. At his best he is an unrivaled polemicist: a “strong writer” whose style leaves a lasting furrow in the reader’s mind and whose arguments, no matter how seemingly wrongheaded, are almost always worth taking seriously. Hitch-22 also has a built-in advantage: all self-portraits are illuminating, though not always in the way the artist intended. You would hardly guess from the brief, warm allusion to O’Brien as “a man of considerable mind” that while alive the Irish writer had been on the receiving end of a comprehensive kicking by Hitchens. Nor would Hitchens’s past relish in repeatedly putting the rhetorical boot into Podhoretz seem credible to anyone encountering the rare, anodyne invocations of the father of neoconservatism here. Hitchens’s new friends on the right might be tempted to trace his earlier lèse-majesté to the malign influence of his former friend, co-conspirator and fellow Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn—himself a conspicuous absence in these pages. But before we examine what Hitchens leaves out, we might consider what he leaves in.

(click to continue reading Changing Places | The Nation.)

 

Hail, Hail Professor Longhair

Seth Anderson0 comment

Loves me some Professor Longhair, and for that matter, vintage Atlantic Records R&B. Such good sides. Highly recommended.

“Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1: 1947-52” (Various Artists)

 

Walk around the streets near my home in east London and the area’s past will soon rise up to meet you – carved above door-frames, etched into glass and painted on awnings and the sides of buildings are the ghost-signs of former industries: shop-fronts and faded adverts for Blooms Pianos and Gillette Razors; fountain pens, glass, stoves and whisky; Strongs Meat and Donovan Brothers’ Paper Bags.

This was once an area famed for furniture and shoemakers, matches and model-makers, but as the industry moved elsewhere many of the names drifted into obscurity, too: Lesney, Bailey & Sloper, Bespoke Shoes, Berger, Jenson & Nicholson, Batey & Co, F Puckeridge & Nephew. As the area reinvents itself with luxury flats and new train lines, galleries and delicatessens, the few names that remain serve as faded, barely noticed reminders of the vibrant history of this part of the city.

I was thinking about these ghost signs and all those lost names this last week as I listened to Atlantic Rhythm and Blues, Volume One. This is a collection of 25 songs released between 1947 and 1952 in the first five years of the label’s existence. It ranges from relatively well-known artists – including Big Joe Turner and Ruth Brown – to obscure acts such as Stick McGhee, who pops up playing his only hit, Drinkin’ Wine (Spo-Dee-O-Dee).

(click to continue reading Hail, Hail, Rock’n’Roll | Laura Barton | Music | The Guardian.)

And ‘Fess…

“Fess: Anthology” (Professor Longhair)

Likewise Professor Longhair, who appears here playing two of his biggest songs, Hey Little Girl and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Born Ray Byrd in Louisiana, Professor Longhair was a blues pianist and singer who settled in New Orleans and whose music has proved something of a linchpin of the city: a rolling, rumbling thing, with a rumba lilt, a certain Caribbeanness, and a croaky, lurching gait. You’d recognise it, surely – the dishevelled, tanked-up plea of Hey Little Girl is played often enough. Mardi Gras in New Orleans, meanwhile, has one of the most persuasive whistled intros in musical history.

This was a man who tap-danced for money along Bourbon Street, who was a card-shark and a gambler and a hustler, a one-time wannabe-boxer; a man who tried to scratch a living as a cook and a dancer and a seller of a miracle cure-all named Hadacol. You can hear it all in his music of course – a need and a desperation and a desire for more. But also a charm and a seduction and something winningly ramshackle.

There was some commercial success, for a while, but not much. Longhair’s musical offspring have been plentiful, though: you can’t listen to Fats Domino or Dr John, Allen Toussaint or Huey Smith without hearing his influence. Nor Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley or Lennon and McCartney. After a period of obscurity in the 1960s, when he worked as a janitor and fell back into gambling, Longhair enjoyed a burst of success in the last decade or so of his life with tours and a new album deal and dues paid by Robbie Robertson and Robert Plant. After his death, on the eve of the release of a new record, he was awarded a posthumous Grammy and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Charanjit Singh – Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat

Seth Anderson0 comment

Picked up a copy of Charanjit Singh’s 10 Ragas to a Disco Beat recently, and it is quite hypnotically fascinating. I’ve never been a big fan of House music, despite its origin just down the street from me, nor has electronica been a favorite, though I have a few favorites. No matter, this album is good, despite having similarities with both of those genres.

Charanjit Singh found himself in an interesting position back in the early 80s. Working as a session musician in the Bollywood films industry, he was exposed to a wide variety of electronic musical devices. Two of the instruments he used, which would not have been made so readily available otherwise, were the Roland TB-303 and TR-808 synthesizers — the very same synthesizers that later generated all of those drippy sounds you hear on your acid house records. During the time he spent away from his work, Singh sought to re-contextualize the ancient music of his nation — the Indian ragas — using the most technologically up-to-date methods. So no, Ten Ragas To a Disco Beat isn’t some abstractly titled avant-garde record (which is what I initially thought); it’s actually ten ragas played over a disco beat. And no, it’s not one of those corny gift-shop albums marketed to rich tourists — it’s 10 hissing artifacts that represent an aurally flexible ancient culture.

Now, ‘hissing’ isn’t usually the word one uses to describe what happens when folks attempt to re-record old cultural music. Usually you’d call it “world music,” and usually you wouldn’t listen to it. But don’t be averted. Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat was originally released in super-limited quantities in 1982, but it’s recently been re-released by the Bombay Connection label, and it couldn’t be better. The melodies mesmerize, the rhythms pulse relentlessly. And the synthesizer… Oh lord, Singh’s synth makes sound that modern electronic producers should envy. Ten Ragas doesn’t come off gimmicky like one would expect from reading over its history, rather, it’s minimal and potent beyond measure. So get

(click to continue reading Charanjit Singh – Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat | DeLorean | Tiny Mix Tapes.)

 

The Spice Necklace

Seth Anderson0 comment

 


“The Spice Necklace: My Adventures in Caribbean Cooking, Eating, and Island Life” (Ann Vanderhoof)

Sounds interesting. I find books that merge history and culinary adventures are often fascinating.

 

Before beginning “The Spice Necklace,” Ann Vanderhoof’s engaging gastronomic memoir-travelogue of the Caribbean, readers should remember that the area they are about to enter is a miniature universe. Each little island—sometimes with only a few thousand inhabitants—is a world unto itself, existing in the same culinary solar system as its neighbors and yet with its own distinct nuances and genealogy.

Caribbean cuisine—whether in Jamaica, Trinidad, Grenada or elsewhere in the archipelago—has both virtues and limits. Whatever the nearby sea and the soil can yield makes for fresh, delicious ingredients, often prepared with gusto and spirited local touches but not always with balance; sometimes native exuberance boils over into excess, especially when it comes to seasoning.

Many of the standby herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables used in sophisticated cuisines elsewhere in the world are native to the Caribbean or are transplants of long standing. Allspice, chilies and breadfruit started in the region or elsewhere in the New World, and curry blends, ginger, mangoes and other ingredients came along with later migrations.

The Caribbean has obvious Spanish, Dutch and French influences, but many others too. The people of Trinidad, to cite but one example, are about equally divided between Afro-descendants of the original slave population and ethnic Indian (and, in smaller numbers, Chinese) citizens whose ancestors worked as indentured field laborers in the 19th century after the slaves were freed.

(click to continue reading Gastronomy Book Review: The Spice Necklace – WSJ.com.)

The Amazon review adds:

While sailing around the Caribbean, Ann Vanderhoof and her husband Steve track wild oregano-eating goats in the cactus-covered hills of the Dominican Republic, gather nutmegs on an old estate in Grenada, make searing-hot pepper sauce in a Trinidadian kitchen, cram for a chocolate-tasting test at the University of the West Indies, and sip moonshine straight out of hidden back-country stills.

Along the way, they are befriended by a collection of unforgettable island characters: Dwight, the skin-diving fisherman who always brings them something from his catch and critiques her efforts to cook it; Greta, who harvests seamoss on St. Lucia and turns it into potent Island-Viagra; sweet-hand Pat, who dispenses hugs and impromptu dance lessons along with cooking tips in her Port of Spain kitchen.

Back in her galley, Ann practices making curry like a Trini, dog sauce like a Martiniquais, and coo-coo like a Carriacouan. And for those who want to take these adventures into their own kitchens, she pulls 71 delicious recipes from the stories she tells, which she places at the end of the relevant chapters.

The Spice Necklace is a wonderful escape into a life filled with sunshine (and hurricanes), delicious food, irreplaceable company, and island traditions.

and as a bonus:

1. Wild oregano is a mainstay in the diet of goats that graze in the hills at the northwest edge of the Dominican Republic–which means the meat comes to the kitchen preseasoned, and infused with flavor.

2.Seamoss is a type of seaweed that is reputed in the Caribbean to be a potent aphrodisiac, the island version of Viagra. It’s dried, boiled until thick, then mixed with milk and spices (such as cinnamon and nutmeg). One restaurant in Grenada calls its version of the milkshake-like seamoss drink “Stay Up.”

3. Nutmeg and mace come from the same tree. When its apricot-like fruit is ripe, it splits open to reveal a lacy, strawberry-red wrapper around the hard glossy brown shell that holds the nutmeg itself. This waxy red corset is mace, and more than 300 pounds of nutmegs are needed to yield a single pound of it.

4. On the Scoville scale of pepper heat, Trinidadian Congo peppers rate about 300,000 units. Even the most fiery Mexican jalapeño only measures about 8,000.

5. Coconut water–the clear liquid inside a young or “jelly” coconut–has the same electrolyte balance as blood and was given intravenously to wounded soldiers as an emergency substitute for plasma during World War II. Coconut water is also better than energy drinks for rehydration, replenishing electrolytes and minerals such as potassium. For the same reasons, it’s used as a hangover cure in the Caribbean.

6. Much of the ground cinnamon sold in North America is actually cassia, which is the variety of cinnamon grown in the Caribbean. Cassia has a stronger, more pungent flavor than true cinnamon. Once a year, the trees are harvested by carefully peeling the bark away from the branches. After the outer layer is removed, the inner bark is dried in the sun. As it dries, it begins to curl into sticks, and then is rolled and pressed by hand to complete the process.

7.The aroma of allspice is a sensuous combination of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper– which leads to the common misconception that it is a blend of several spices. In fact, allspice is a single spice– the dried berry of a tree that is native only to the West Indies and Central America. Jamaica produces 90% of the world’s supply; Grenada, the remaining 10%.

8. To make removing coconut meat from the shell easier, bore holes in two of the eyes of the coconut using a pointed utensil and drain the liquid. Bake the nut in a preheated 400° F oven for 15–20 minutes. This cracks the shell and shrinks the meat slightly, so it virtually pops out.

9. Mauby, a popular West Indian drink, has a proven ability to reduce high blood pressure. It’s made by steeping the bark of a native Caribbean tree with spices such as bay, cinnamon, star anise, and fennel.

10. Vanilla is the world’s second most costly spice (after saffron). Not only do most vanilla flowers have to be hand-pollinated to produce beans, but the beans also have to be fermented and aged to develop their flavor. Straight off the vine, they’re odorless and tasteless.



Arrested Development Movie Is Definitely Happening

Seth Anderson0 comment

Awesome. Coincidentally, we’ve been watching Arrested Development on DVD, and we have been rolling on the floor with guffaws of laughter. Such a funny show, holds up to a second viewing even though Iraq is not in the news as much as it was in 2003.

Arrested Development

According to GQ, both star Will Arnett and Mitch Hurwitz, creator of the beloved cult Fox sitcom, have verified that their highly anticipated film adaptation is finally in the works after years of rumors. Of course, there are still some details to be worked out, such as trying to co-ordinate the filming around the schedules of a dozen in-demand stars like Jason Bateman and David Cross, but considering the trials and tribulations the film has faced to get to this point over the last four years, that’s barely a minor hurdle.

So what do we know about the movie? Well, not much, other than these two vital facts: Everyone from the original series, which went off the air in 2006 after three critically acclaimed seasons, has agreed to return for the movie

(click to continue reading ‘Arrested Development’ Movie Is Definitely Happening, Say Will Arnett and Mitch Hurwitz | Inside Movies.)

and from GQ:

we were talking to Will Arnett. And this is what he said: “Yes, it’s happening.” He went on, but here’s the upshot: there is a script—!!!—but it is not finished; all of the principle cast members are on board, but there is no timetable to actually make the movie. So then we called Mitch Hurwitz to make sure that our ears did not deceive us and that Arnett wasn’t just pulling our leg. They didn’t, and he wasn’t.

“Believe it or not, we have started the script,” Hurwitz told GQ. (And by “we,” he means himself and “Arrested” co-executive producer Jim Vallely.) “We’re taking a little abeyance while we get [‘Running Wilde’] up and running. But it is our absolute next priority and we can’t wait to do it.” So, rejoice! Hurwitz also had a bit more to say: “We’re changing some of the Bush references to Obama because we started it awhile ago. And the Bluths may not be vacationing in the Gulf of Mexico anymore. We also might have to recast the part of Uncle Mel, the former action movie star. But other than that we have a clear path.”

(click to continue reading GQ Exclusive: Arnett, Hurwitz Say “Arrested Development” Movie Is On Like Donkey Kong: The Q: GQ.)

Can’t wait, and even though I’d prefer Arrested Development came back and did another three year stretch on television, a movie would be the next best thing.

Robert Plant Upcoming Band of Joy Album

Seth Anderson1 Comment


“Band of Joy” (Robert Plant)

Sounds worth a spin, liked the Alison Krauss collaboration, and have been really digging into American roots music, Bakersfield, etc., plus always finding time to rock out a bit to Led Zeppelin once in a while.

Last night, Robert Plant dropped in at a dimly lit bar in the East Village near the end of a listening session for his newest album, Band of Joy, and for a few brief moments, admitted he didn’t know what to talk about. “Should I tell you about the Butter Queen and the Plaster Casters in Chicago?” he said, referencing some of the most famous groupies in rock history. “That’s not quite as relevant now as back then — and penicillin is easily available now.”

Holding a microphone in front of a small crowd at New York’s Back Room, the Led Zeppelin frontman quickly changed the subject to the new disc, due September 14th on Rounder Records. Band of Joy follows the intimate, moody vibe of his Grammy-winning collaboration with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand, but the songs are more powerful, like the blazing spiritual classic “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” and a hard-driving take on “Harm’s Swift Way,” a rare Townes Van Zandt track.


“March 16-20 1992” (Uncle Tupelo)

Band of Joy was originally Plant’s experimental blues outfit in Birmingham, England, from 1966 to 1968, which helped earn him the nickname “The wild man of the blues from the Black Country.” John Bonham joined in 1967. While Plant’s Zep days were often too demanding to allow him time to appreciate American music, one of his earliest singles was a cover of the Rascals’ “You Better Run” in 1966. Plant was 17, playing with the Tennessee Teens for Columbia Records, and says the track went nowhere. “It disappeared without a trace,” he remembered. “Forty-one years later, I finally decided that it was worth working with American musicians.”

Resurrecting the Band of Joy, Plant picked out top-notch roots musicians and session players for the group: multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott, guitarist and co-producer Buddy Miller, drummer Marco Giovino and bassist Byron House. “I’m working with arch-bishops of good taste,” Plant said.

(click to continue reading Robert Plant Previews Upcoming Band of Joy Album | Rolling Stone Music.)

Hmm, don’t know the Townes Van Zandt song called Harm’s Swift Way, have to look into that.

Woodrow Wilson and His Incapacitation

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House” (Phyllis Lee Levin)

Utterly fascinating essay by Errol Morris, which dwells a bit on Woodrow Wilson and his wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, who seems to have been the de facto President for quite some time. I’m moderately well read in American history, and I did not realize quite how incapacitated Wilson actually was.

Wilson described himself as “lame” and referred to his cane as his “third leg,”[43] but otherwise he considered himself perfectly fit to be president. There was even talk of a third term. Yet his close associates noticed a change in his personality. He became increasingly suspicious, even paranoid, without having the dimmest awareness of the fact that he was perhaps becoming a different person from what he once was. Stockton Axson, his brother-in-law from his first marriage, wrote that “[Wilson] would be seized with what, to a normal person, would seem to be inexplicable outbursts of emotion.”[44] He was furious at anyone who suggested that he had physical and mental problems, and the last months of his presidency became a graveyard of fired associates. Edith Bolling Wilson, his second wife, had already deposed many of the president’s closest and most effective associates, including Colonel Edward M. House, who had played a major role at the Paris peace talks. Wilson also forced the resignation of Robert Lansing, his secretary of state, who had dared to call a cabinet meeting to discuss the president’s illness.

Phyllis Lee Levin delved into the medical records (with some pushback from Princeton University’s Wilson Papers)

In the preface to her book, Phyllis Lee Levin suggests a counterfactual history, a history with a League of Nations that included the United States. It is one of history’s great what-ifs. What if Edith Wilson had allowed her husband to hand the reins of government to his vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, in 1919? Would there have been no second world war?

Given Marshall’s reasonable temperament, is it not possible that he might have reached a compromise with Henry Cabot Lodge over the degree to which Americans ought to involve themselves in foreign wars, and have thus led the United States to membership in the League of Nations? Such great questions are central to my reconsideration, in the present book, of the role and influence of Wilson’s wife during “one of the most extraordinary periods in the whole history of the Presidency.” Edith Wilson was by no means the benign figure of her pretensions; the president far less than the hero of his aspirations. On closer examination, their lives are a sinister embodiment of Mark Twain’s tongue-in-cheek observation that he “never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.”[50]

What if the truth of Wilson’s condition, his anosognosia, had been more widely known? Was it just that the facts of the illness was suppressed? Or did the public want to believe that the president was healthy, that nothing was wrong. That even if the president was paralyzed, “. . . his mind was clear and untouched.” Edward Weinstein also weighed in on these questions. His view was unequivocal. The president had become intransigent, inflexible. There was no willingness to compromise and hence the Treaty [ratifying the U.S. participation in the League of Nations] was doomed.

It is the author’s opinion that the cerebral dysfunction that resulted from Wilson’s devastating strokes prevented the ratification of the Treaty.

(click to continue reading The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 3) – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.)

I have to read Ms. Levin’s book, sounds fascinating…

ERROL MORRIS: Did you feel, from the very outset, that there was something inherently dishonorable about what they did?  That they should have been completely transparent or forthcoming about the extent of his illness?  The idea that perhaps they were preserving his policies, a chance for world peace, that it was critical to —

PHYLLIS LEE LEVIN: But, they weren’t doing anything.  They weren’t executing anything at all.

ERROL MORRIS: So it was just a grab for power, power for its own sake, by Mrs. Wilson?

PHYLLIS LEE LEVIN: She was probably a very limited woman, intellectually. I’m being very kind.  She wasn’t a very educated woman.  And she was a very vain woman.  She honestly felt that her husband was the only one in the world entitled to be president, even in the shape he was in.

ERROL MORRIS: But who was in control?  Was it Wilson?  Was it Edith?

PHYLLIS LEE LEVIN: It was a conglomerate of people.  Republicans are always blamed for the failure of the peace pact.  When the vote came there had to be compromises.  But Wilson’s mind was so damaged by his illness that he had to have peace on his terms or not at all.  So we didn’t have the peace pact because of him.  Henry Cabot Lodge [the leader of Wilson’s Republican opposition] has been made the villain of all time for this.  Whereas, he had offered a compromise.  What the Wilsons did was just desperately terrible.  It was really the grandest deception in the world.   It’s really a very shocking story.

From a Whisper to a Scream

Seth Anderson0 comment


“From a Whisper to a Scream” (Allen Toussaint)

Seriously good – pick up a copy if you don’t already have one

Kent Soul has done an exceptional job in remastering and reissuing Allen Toussaint’s classic sophomore long-player — which was known simply as Allen Toussaint — and the “bonus” selection, a vocal-less blues-meets-funk titled “Number Nine.” When these songs first surfaced circa 1970, Toussaint (piano/vocals) had become a decade-long veteran of the New Orleans’ Crescent City soul movement. Under his own name as well as the pseudonym of Naomi Neville, he was a composer, producer, and even a recording session musician. He left a trail of influential R&B titles that would resound back across the pond in the form of cover versions by the likes of the Rolling Stones (“Pain in My Heart”), the Yardbirds (“A Certain Girl”), and the Who (“Fortune Teller”), along with countless others. Toussaint’s uncanny musical malleability resulted in a diverse yet solid second solo outing.

He is supported by Mac Rebennack (organ/guitar) (aka Dr. John), Terry Kellman (guitar), Eddie Hohner (bass), Freddie Staehle (drums), John Boudreaux (drums), Clyde Kerr (trumpet), Earl Turbinton (alto sax), and none other than Merry Clayton (backing vocals) and Venetta Fields — perhaps the most in demand studio voices of the rock & roll era. The dramatic “From a Whisper to a Scream” perfectly captures the synergy existing between Toussaint’s ultra cool delivery and the understated yet piercing lyrical indictment. Other highlights include the pop-oriented, upbeat, and classy “Sweet Touch of Love,” the author’s interpretation of “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky” and “Working in the Coalmine.”

(click to continue reading From a Whisper to a Scream > Overview.)

Everyone should have a few Allen Toussaint albums around, worn from repeated playing1

Footnotes:
  1. even though CDs theoretically don’t have this problem the way a vinyl record does, CDs still get worn, scratched and discolored from repeated handling [↩]

Nneka: In the Footsteps of Fela

Seth Anderson0 comment

Being in the footsteps of Fela is high praise, and not at all like being labeled as The Next Dylan1

Nigeria has a storied legacy of fierce anti-government musicians, most famous among them the Afrobeat king Fela Kuti (currently enjoying a posthumous popular revival with the hit Broadway show “Fela!”). But since Fela’s death in 1997, there hasn’t been an obvious heir apparent to his musical prowess and political agitations, even among Fela’s two musician sons.

In the magnetic singer Nneka (Nneka Egbuna, 29), the opening act for Nas and Damian Marley’s Distant Relatives summer tour, Nigeria has found another performer capable of drawing global attention.

Nneka pulled herself up from a hardscrabble background in the oil-producing Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria and with no family support emigrated to Germany when she was 19 (her father is Nigerian and her mother is German). After years spent struggling to earn a living – including a stint cleaning bathrooms – Nneka found music.

While she has been recording for years in Germany, her first U.S. album, “Concrete Jungle,” was released just last year. Give it a listen and just try not to have it’s hard-driving first single, “Heartbeat,” get stuck in your head.

(click to continue reading Nneka: In the Footsteps of Fela – Speakeasy – WSJ.)

 Sounds worth a listen at least

2010 album from the Nigerian-German Hip Hop/Soul singer/songwriter. Concrete Jungle is a collection of songs that put the singer/songwriter at the forefront. The album is an offering of love, hope and optimism dedicated to the people of Warri & the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Holding it all together is the emotional focus of her beautiful voice, located in a place somewhere between yearning and rage.

Footnotes:
  1. well, let’s hope so anyway [↩]

Netflixed: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Wes Anderson)

Saw my brother-from-another-mother1 Wes Anderson’s new film recently:

Netflix Fantastic Mr Fox

When Mr. Fox’s nightly raids on three nearby farms raise the ire of the selfish farmers, he must outwit the men’s increasingly outrageous plans to catch him in this animated adaption of the Roald Dahl book. As the farmers’ schemes take a toll on his hungry family, Mr. Fox must find a new way to get his paws on the bounty. Wes Anderson directs, and George Clooney and Bill Murray lend their voice-over talents in this Oscar nominee.

(click to Netflix Fantastic Mr. Fox.)

Better than expected actually, if you are in the mood for quirky humor, and adult situations. Not a kids movie, really, though intelligent children would probably grok most of insinuations, just light-hearted stop-animation, like a picture book brought to life.

I quite enjoyed it.

Footnotes:
  1. not really, we just share a last name, and an overlap of being at the UT film school at the same time, probably had some classes together, or sat in some screenings without noticing each other. In today’s hyper-connected world, we might have known each other, in those ancient of days without computers and without social networking, shy folk like myself kept our own company [↩]

Mark Twain Autobiography Will Finally Reveal All – 100 Years Later

Seth Anderson0 comment

Mark Twain’s will stipulated that his autobiography not be released until 100 years of his death, in 1910. Curious as to what new nuggets will be revealed.

Exactly a century after rumours of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain’s dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published.

The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.

That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain’s autobiography. The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist.

(click to continue reading After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all – News, Books – The Independent.)

 Speculation about the contents:


“Mark Twain’s Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years” (Laura Skandera Trombley)

One thing’s for sure: by delaying publication, the author, who was fond of his celebrity status, has ensured that he’ll be gossiped about during the 21st century. A section of the memoir will detail his little-known but scandalous relationship with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon, who became his secretary after the death of his wife Olivia in 1904. Twain was so close to Lyon that she once bought him an electric vibrating sex toy. But she was abruptly sacked in 1909, after the author claimed she had “hypnotised” him into giving her power of attorney over his estate.

Their ill-fated relationship will be recounted in full in a 400-page addendum, which Twain wrote during the last year of his life. It provides a remarkable account of how the dying novelist’s final months were overshadowed by personal upheavals.

“Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this document he calls her a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It’s completely at odds with the impression most people have of him,” says the historian Laura Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain’s Other Woman.

And the Texas State Board of Education will probably stop teaching Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in Texas classrooms, because Mark Twain had opinions of his own, opinions that the Christian Taliban won’t like:


"Mark Twain: Man in White: The Grand Adventure of His Final Years" (Michael Shelden)

Another potential motivation for leaving the book to be posthumously published concerns Twain’s legacy as a Great American. Michael Shelden, who this year published Man in White, an account of Twain’s final years, says that some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image.

“He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He’s also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there.”

The Rolling Stones forbidden documentary

Seth Anderson0 comment

We’ve discussed Cocksucker Blues before,1 but apparently if you are wealthy enough2 to purchase the Super Deluxe package release of Exile On Main Street, you’ll be able to see snippets from Cocksucker Blues:

Exile On Main St Dlx

It’s hard to know what the Stones expected from [Robert ] Frank, whose previous films, including the Beat landmark “Pull My Daisy” (1959), showed little interest in conventional narrative of either the fiction or nonfiction variety. (At one point, Frank theorized he was chosen because his friend Danny Seymour, who appears in the film, was adept at procuring hard drugs, which made him a valuable commodity in the Stones’ circle.) In any case, the Stones didn’t like what they saw — or at the very least considered it unwise to release. According to one account, Jagger told Frank he liked the film but worried that “if it shows in America, we’ll never be allowed in the country again.” The band successfully sued to prevent the release of “Cocksucker Blues,” with showings limited to those at which Frank was physically present (a requirement that has been slightly loosened in recent years as the 85-year-old Frank’s ability to travel has been curtailed). Video was verboten as well, of course, although VHS bootlegs and now Internet downloads have always been within the reach of the curious and determined. It’s also made appearances on various streaming video sites, although its tenure is inevitably short-lived.

“Cocksucker Blues” is infamous for its scenes of debauchery, like an incipient orgy on the Stones’ private plane where women shriek as their shirts are pulled off and Jagger and Richards bang instruments like a satanic house band. (Carefully edited snippets appear on the “Exile” DVD, although the Glimmer Twins now seem to preside over a mild outbreak of tickle fighting.) But such spectacles would hardly have damaged the reputation of a band whose image was based in excess. And besides, the Stones are absent for many of the movie’s most notorious scenes, including those in which unidentified hangers-on stick needles in their arm and a sperm-spattered naked woman sprawls on a hotel bed and fingers her crotch in postcoital reverie.

What was perhaps more damaging — and, to the outside observer, most intriguing — is just how dull the life of the world’s biggest rock ‘n’ roll band could be. At times, Frank goes out of his way to portray the drudgery of life on the road, as when he intercuts footage of a couple shooting up in a hotel room with scenes of Keith Richards quietly playing cards. In one sublime sequence, included on the “Exile” DVD, a lugubrious Richards makes a slurred and unsuccessful attempt to order a bowl of fruit from a woman in a Southern hotel.

…

There’s concert footage as well, much of it astonishing; many fans regard the 1972 tour as the Stones’ finest hour. It’s a shame the “Exile” DVD only shows us the second half of their duet with Stevie Wonder, who toured as their opening act, picking up with “Satisfaction” but omitting the segue out of Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright).” But the vividly colored stage performances only heighten the dolorous feel of the black-and-white behind-the-scenes footage. In his novel “Underworld,” whose third section is named for the film, Don DeLillo described it thus: “The camera phalanx in the tunnels. People sitting around, two people asleep in a lump or tripped out or they could be unnoticeably dead, the endless noisy boredom of the tour — tunnels and runways.”

(click to continue reading The Rolling Stones’ forbidden documentary – Documentaries – Salon.com.)

Footnotes:
  1. Wikipedia entry [↩]
  2. or a big enough Rolling Stones fan [↩]

Mick Jagger and Internet Piracy

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Mick Jagger is quite right about this: look at the finances of Muddy Waters, or Blind Lemon Jefferson, or The Carter Family, or even someone like Fats Domino. Being a career musician was about being a live musician, because that’s what paid the bills. The records themselves were not how most musicians paid their bar bills.

In an interview with the BBC, Jagger is asked if he is worried about sales of his back catalog in the days of internet downloading

He replies:

Music has been aligned with technology for a long time. The model of records and record selling is a very complex subject and quite boring, to be honest.

BBC: But your view is valid because you have a huge catalogue, which is worth a lot of money, and you’ve been in the business a long time, so you have perspective.

Well, it’s all changed in the last couple of years. We’ve gone through a period where everyone downloaded everything for nothing and we’ve gone into a grey period it’s much easier to pay for things – assuming you’ve got any money.

…

I am quite relaxed about it. But, you know, it is a massive change and it does alter the fact that people don’t make as much money out of records. But I have a take on that – people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn’t make any money out of records because record companies wouldn’t pay you! They didn’t pay anyone! Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone. So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn’t.

(click to continue reading BBC News – Sir Mick Jagger goes back to Exile.)


“The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. (33 1/3)” (Bill Janovitz)

Exile On Main Street has long been a favorite album of mine, probably the last Rolling Stones LP (chronologically speaking) that I really like. The re-issue is currently a bit too pricey for my taste, I’m more interested in the remastered version of the original album, presumedly this will be available eventually by itself.